Letter from America: Will Washington Survive the Shutdown?

The AnewZ Opinion section provides a platform for independent voices to share expert perspectives on global and regional issues. The views expressed are solely those of the authors and do not represent the official position of AnewZ

The world is naturally concerned about the impact the shuttering of the U.S. government will have on global affairs, trade, and international security. It need not be. The shutdown is more of an idea than event.

No one is putting the U.S.S. Nimitz in drydock or sending the Marines home on extended furlough. The Coast Guard will still intercept drug boats, even if the White House does not order them blown out of the water, and federal retirement payments will go out as scheduled. The mail will be picked up and delivered, taxes will be collected, and the business of government will go on with non-essential employees afforded the luxury of an unexpected and unpaid vacation of indeterminate length.

Under U.S. law, the President, Trump, or any other has broad powers to label an unlimited number of federal personnel and programs as “essential,” meaning the nation cannot do without them. Everything else, therefore, is non-essential, meaning the American people can do without them for a time.

What it is all really about is finger pointing and establishing in the minds of the voters just who it is that is responsible for the fencing that keeps people away from the Washington Monument, blocking the roadside view of South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore, and the closure of thousands of federal offices that serve special interests and hand out subsidies to favored industries, classes, and endeavors.

Shutdowns are about politics and spending priorities, not making sure the books are balanced. Indeed, there is no requirement whatsoever that the federal expenditures and income be anything close to equal. It is not in law, and it is not in the U.S. Constitution, though there have been efforts to add an amendment that would do just that on occasion.

All have failed. None made it out of Congress for ratification by the required number of states.

Shutdowns occur whenever a new fiscal year begins at midnight on October 1, without the requisite number of federal spending bills having passed Congress and been signed into law by the President. That means, in theory, there is no money to spend.

In fact, and has already been explained, that is just not true. Even the money held back usually gets paid out eventually, thanks to some provision buried somewhere in the legislation that restores things to the way they were.

The first time most people can remember a shutdown happening is 1981, when newly elected President Ronald Reagan and his fellow Republicans, who controlled the U.S. Senate for the first time since the 1950s, were trying to cut some spending and enact a program to grow the economy out of the mess Jimmy Carter had left it in.

The problem was that the Democrats constituted a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, which was then run by Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill of Massachusetts, a man of voracious appetites who never met a public dollar he did not want to spend or a private dollar he did not want to tax.

Reagan and O’Neill took it to the brink, as most commentators who explain things to the American people gravely intoned how bad a government shutdown would be for everyone and how it was almost unthinkable.

The stakes were raised, higher and still higher again, with each party thinking the other would be pressured at the last minute into cutting a deal. Then the clock struck twelve, and as the last “bong” echoed across the Washington Mall, the government closed.  

To the surprise of most everyone, the world did not end. The government stayed shut for two or three days. When the deal was eventually struck to restart the non-essential programs and bring non-essential personnel back to work, everyone discovered that the only harm done was political. The economy was not much affected at all.

It took a couple more budget impasses for politicians, especially those without power at the time, to realize that a shutdown was a great way to attract attention, please their base, make a point, and possibly get something through that would never pass Congress under standard rules.

During the remainder of the Reagan years, this led to yearly continuing resolutions – the formal name for the legislation that Congress passes to reopen the government without passing the necessary appropriations bills – that were full of items that no one had requested during the congressional sessions. The CRs – which is what they are called in D.C. speak – were full of considerations given to individual members of the House and Senate in exchange for a promise to vote “Aaye” on the final measure.

That made the politicians, especially those who thought and think their job is to spend other people’s money, very happy. And it put the U.S. further into debt, which was not a problem per se, as long as the economy continued to grow and total debt as a percentage of the gross domestic product remained relatively stable.

The current shutdown involves demands by Democrats in the Senate that the money funding the program that provides medical services to the poor, which was deleted from the budget in the bill to extend and expand the Trump tax cuts, be restored.

It is a budget buster that the Democrats are attempting to justify in the name of humanity. They are not drawing attention to the fact that there are millions more people enrolled in the Medicaid program, which many states expanded as part of the adoption of Obamacare, than the official statistics say are eligible.

As the Republicans put it, what they did was take Medicaid away from people who should not be on it in the first place. They are defending the American taxpayer, which, according to the latest figures, amounts to just over half the country. The rest do not pay income taxes but may be on Medicaid when they are not supposed to be.

Typically, the GOP would get its way, as it holds majorities in both the House and Senate. There are enough votes to pass the CR as currently written under regular order. But New York’s Chuck Schumer, who leads the Democrats in the Senate, has tied the bill up and stopped its progress by creating a situation that is permissible under the chamber’s rules that make 60 affirmative votes necessary to end debate and move to a vote.

That means nothing passes with only Republican votes. Schumer may win the issue in the fight over the CR, but that is not very likely. There will be a deal cut somewhere down the road. But Schumer’s more concerned about being able to use the issue as a political club in the next election. He wants his party to run ads that say, “On the orders of President Donald Trump, Republican Senator So-and-So voted to gut healthcare for the poor and indigent while cutting taxes for billionaires and then shut the government down to make it stick. Send Trump a message. Vote Democrat in November.”

That is this year and next. The next time the GOP is in Schumer’s position and a Democrat is in the White House, the Republicans no doubt will pull a similar stunt. The politicians all know a shutdown is not serious. It is a temporary measure with no lasting impact, but it is a great way to control the national narrative and secure headlines. That is why we will see more of them until the budget process itself is changed to do what Kentucky GOP Congressman Andy Barr has brilliantly proposed: put spending on autopilot at something like the current year’s levels if the end of the fiscal year comes without a spending plan for the upcoming year enacted into law. That way, the money does not legally run out, and the government does not shut down.

Until one of those two things happens, the threat of a shutdown or the actual closure of non-essential government programs for an unspecified time will be a club the party without power will swing to hit what it thinks are political home runs. 

Copied